6 Ways to Promote Yourself When You Hate Self-Promotion

The word self-promotion doesn’t exactly conjure up all sorts of positive images. “Oh yes, please tell me more about yourself…” But self-promotion is often a very important step in achieving the level of success you wish for. This is not just in the workplace – this is anywhere you need people to know what your strengths and experiences are.

Women, in particular, have a very hard time with this. We don’t want to come off as bragging, self-aggrandizing, snobs. Women also tend to dislike other women who are promoting themselves. There’s that, but that’s a blog post for another day. Despite all of these facts, self-promoting is still important and can be beneficial not just to the promoter, but to those they are promoting to as well.

“How could my self-promotion be beneficial to someone else?” Allow me to explain. When someone is promoting themselves correctly, they are doing so in order to share how they may be able to help someone else. For example, if you’re going for a job interview, you are telling the interviewer the strengths, qualities, and experiences you possess that you believe would be most beneficial to them. Sure, you want the job, but your purpose in an interview is to share what you have that will meet their needs. Of course, you can share the typical, “team player, reliable, dependable, hard-working, attention to detail” stuff, but everyone says that. You need to share your unique, specific strengths and experiences.

The question remains how to self-promote without coming across as an arrogant, self-absorbed braggart. This is easier than you think.

Share what you enjoy doing – Let’s say you want a senior leader to know some of your accomplishments. You can arrange to meet with them and say something like, “I wanted to share with you how much I enjoyed using my strengths to complete the ABC Project. Project planning is a true passion of mine. Combining my love of that and my strengths with team building really made this project not only successful, but fun and challenging. As you may know, I’m looking to advance within the company and would love to be a part of any future projects that would benefit from those skills.” (Boom!)

Talk about the team (kind of) – Share your skills and talents as a contributing piece of a team effort. For example, you could say, “I was fortunate to work with a great team when we developed that community event. The organizing and outreach skills my teammates brought, along with my marketing and public speaking skills really helped us pull off such a successful event.”

Ask others to share – When you ask others what their gifts are and how they most like using them, they are likely to return the question your way (like in networking events). This exchanging of information could prove valuable to both of you.

Be prepared with details – Once you’ve shared some of your strengths or passions, you may be asked for more details. Be prepared to share hard data. Share the specific benefit of your project, how much money you saved, how many people you served, etc.

Use LinkedIn – This social media tool is specifically designed to help people share their strengths and experiences so that they can connect with others who are looking for those skills. Take it a step further and write an article to share with your connections.

Practice – As with anything, this will get easier once you practice and create a method of self-promotion that is authentic to you.

Remember, self-promotion is simply a way to get others aware of what you have to offer, how you can help them, and that you have a willingness and desire TO help. You have ideas, experiences, skills, and opinions that are entirely unique to you. They are incredibly valuable, but only if people know what they are.

I know exactly where you can start – HERE! Share a strength, talent, or passion that you have in the comments section! What are your top three strengths/skills?

If you would like to partner up and work on self-promotion, then an Empowerment Session is for you! Take advantage of the complimentary strategy session!

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email April@AuthenticLifeChronicles.com

Comments

Great tips April – I definitely need to tidy up my Linked in profile! My top 3 strengths would be a passion and skill for helping others overcome barriers and particularly those that come up around health; empathy and an ability to meet people where they’re at; I adore public speaking

This is a great post – and so important. I was speaking about this with a fellow entrepreneur friend the other day.. And I think women are so used to not doing it, that even when we think we do it, we don’t. Case in point, last week I met a few people at a business dinner. They connected me to someone who is in a similar industry, and the introduction clearly shows they really did not get the gist of what I do and how far established my company already was. I’m not upset with them, but it just goes to show if we are now out there really selling ourselves, people may miss it!

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Hello, I’m April!

April is a Personal Development Coach. She is a certified Strategic Interventionist, trained Financial Coach and skilled Workshop Designer and Facilitator. She helps growth-minded, life-long learners identify opportunities for reaching their highest potential. She works with clients to create fail-proof strategies using her own unique system. She strives to empower others to live a fulfilling, authentic life both personally and professionally.